Wimbledon exit: Andreescu drops second 3rd-round match in 5 weeks to Paolini

Bianca Andreescu, of Mississauga, Ont., is out of the women’s singles draw at Wimbledon after dropping her third-round match to French Open runner-up Jasmine Paolini of Italy in straight sets 7-6 (4), 6-1 on Friday.

The seventh-seeded Paolini, who also ousted the Canadian in the third round at Roland-Garros last month, won 76 per cent of her first serves and broke Andreescu four times on seven opportunities in a match that lasted 91 minutes.

Andreescu committed 21 unforced errors, compared to 13 for Paolini.

The Italian recorded 17 winners in total, with 14 of them coming at the net.

“I tried to be aggressive because if not, she’s going to run me [around] too much,” Paolini said. “The goal for me was to control the point from the beginning, with the serve and the return.”

Paolini’s win sets up a fourth-round clash against either Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine or Madison Keys of the United States.

WATCH: Andreescu suffers 3rd-round loss to Paolini at Wimbledon:

Andreescu and Paolini played under the retractable roof on No. 1 Court at the All England Club.

Canadian Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., began his match against American Ben Shelton on Friday, but rain suspended play with Shelton leading 3-2 in the opening set.

In women’s doubles action, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe were tied 1-1 in the first set against Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova and Irina Khromacheva when play was suspended. Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., and Japan’s Ena Shibahara lost their opening set 6-2 to Estonia’s Ingrid Neel and Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri before the suspension of play.

Shapovalov’s match was rescheduled to Saturday afternoon local time, with Dabrowski and Fernandez’s contest also pushed to Saturday.

Alcaraz survives against Tiafoe

Carlos Alcaraz found himself pushed to a Grand Slam fifth set again, this time at Wimbledon, this time against good pal Frances Tiafoe. And as he usually does under such circumstances, no matter how much trouble he might have been in, Alcaraz surged to the finish.

Alcaraz avoided a surprising exit and got past Tiafoe 5-7, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2 on Friday to reach Wimbledon’s fourth round in an entertaining match filled with moments of brilliance and a series of momentum swings across its three hours 50 minutes.

“It’s always a big challenge playing against Frances. As I’ve said many, many times, he’s a really talented player. Really tough to face. And he showed it once again,” Alcaraz said. “It was really, really difficult for me to adapt my game, to find solutions, to try to put him in trouble. But really happy to do it at the end.”

In front of a Centre Court crowd that included Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, and under a closed retractable roof that amplified the thuds of rackets-on-balls, grunts and cheers, the third-seeded Alcaraz was outplayed for stretches by No. 29 Tiafoe.

But Alcaraz was better at the business end and improved to 12-1 in his nascent career in fifth sets, including victories in the semifinals and final at the French Open after being down 2-1 in sets en route to the title there last month. Tiafoe fell to 6-13 in five-setters.

Tiafoe was unable to pull out what would have been a surprising victory for someone who arrived at Wimbledon with a sprained ligament in his right knee and a losing record this season.

Sure came close, though.

The 26-year-old American was two points away from getting the chance to serve for the win, getting to love-30 on Alcaraz’s serve at 4-4 in the fourth set. But Alcaraz steadied himself and claimed the next four points, capped by an ace at 210 kilometres per hour.

He then dominated the ensuing tiebreaker, grabbing a 5-0 lead.

“I served [at] a lot of difficult moments during the fourth set. … All I was thinking is: ‘OK, fight one more ball, one more ball.’ Thinking about the next point,” Alcaraz said. “And obviously in the tiebreak, I always tell myself that I have to go for it. If I lose it, I lose it, but I have to feel that I went for it all the time.”

The final set featured more one-way traffic. Tiafoe held in the opening game, but that was pretty much that. At 1-1, Alcaraz got the last break he would need by smacking a cross-court backhand passing shot that Tiafoe let fly by; the ball landed right at the baseline, spraying a bit of chalk.

Others into the fourth round with victories on a rainy day were reigning U.S. Open champion Coco Gauf, No. 19 Emma Navarro — the American who eliminated Naomi Osaka earlier in the week — and 2017 U.S. Open runner-up Madison Keys in the women’s bracket, and No. 10 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 12 Tommy Paul in the men’s.